Another CQd Block

OK end of May I received another set of crazy patched blocks for my embellishing - these are Jane C's African blocks and at first I was intimidated wondering what I was going to do.  They are so lovely and I wanted to add to them not wreck them.  So I GOOGLED (love that option) and came up some ideas for African flowers, animals, masks and baskets that I thought I could embroider.

So not long after that I started on the Bird of Paradise leaves and flowers in the grassie fabric in one of the blocks. Then I chose some complimentary perle cottons and proceeded to embroider a trio of baskets in the same patch.  Two of them were in stem stitch but one is a woven effect and I like them all.  I decided that I would just work on the one block and for some reason did not take pictures of the other - which I totally LOVE - it has an awesome giraffe charm on it.

Also those dragonfly & butterfly are not my tatting, I just thought they begged for more to be added to that patch.  I just can't believe it but I finished this and got it mailed away in like two weeks???  WOW definitely a first.

Pincushions - Redressed

Some time ago I made up these china saucer pincushions but felt for me they were lacking - maybe not quite finished.  So I decided I was going to tat some edging and tie it under the button and bury the ends into the pincushion.  Well I finally was able to finish one to my liking and will try others too.  So what do you think?

I personally like the bit of tatting with beads around this.

2012 Lace Days

Yes once again our Northern Lights Lacemakers (mainly bobbin lacemakers but a few tatters in the mix) put together another educational event with lace displays, items for sale along with refreshements cafe - all by silver collection.  Please drop in and check out our Blog for a collection of photos from the event.

Here is a picture of Mary (on the right) with the butterfly she made for me.  I had picked out the threads at last year's Lace Retreat and now I have to decide what I will be doing with it!  I LOVE IT!  Thank you very much Mary.

2012 Morden Retreat

YEAH this year I finally convinced my sister to join me in Morden for the Aurora Quilters retreat during the Barnswallows Quilt Show weekend. 

It was too bad that I had an ungraceful uncontrolled meltdown at work the week before that put a horrible damper on this event.  BUT it was very good that those there did not know the circumstances and only knew that I just about had not attended.  Yes I would have missed it and I did get a lot of sewing accomplished that weekend - a good deal of it with the help of my sister and friends.  Thank you all.

Can you believe this - I did not really take retreat pictures!!!  I did photograph some quilt show items which will eventually be in my Webshots albums and yes I did get Sylvia to take a few pictures of my various projects that I worked on.  So here they are.

My first attempt at Sashiko and I must say I did pretty good.  To fill the space I did a varied echoing around with the Sashiko cotton thread.

These black & white with the red centre nine patch blocks were stitched up then cut apart and restitched as disappearing 9-patch blocks in March.  Then I snagged my sister and niece to "layout" the quilt top - I was going buggy and just gave up by myself.  So during the retreat I assembled the quilt top and added the narrow red inner border.  After this retreat I did start cutting the remaining 6.25 inch black & white blocks in half and stitching up the outer piano key like border.  One day I'll finish it off and repost again.

Then I found this awesome dragonfly fabric at Kathy's Quilt Shop in Carman along with the coordinating fabrics and used a pattern Sylvia had with her.  EXCEPT the pattern was basically 2.5 inch squares all sewn together - NADA I was not doing that.  I wanted something simpler using the lovely fabric designs for the centre blocks and then the coordinating fabrics I cut in strips and assembled together.  Now all I have to do is put it together in a pillow slip fashion - eliminating binding period.

Now this fabric with various images of typewriters and it's keys on a blotchy coloured background just caught my eye last year at Kathy's Quilt Shop in Carman and in my book "Quilt Your Stash" from Joan Ford's "Scrappy Therapy" program I sort of followed the "Table Stripes Runner" pattern.  I found the pastel orange-like batik for contrast to do a sort of colour wash look.  Then Tami suggested I should throw in some 4" blocks of the typewriter and the word blocks - SHEESH - it took me ages to set those blocks down on my flannel board.  I did like the idea but totally dreaded redoing anything, so I cut the blocks out and let them go with reconfiguring the layout, then I sewed it all together.  I LOVE IT!!!  THANK YOU ladies!!!

Yes I did enjoy my weekend even though there was that dark cloud hanging over me!